Commercial balers and/or compactors are machines used to compact materials, typically waste, such as office paper, corrugated fiber board, plastic, packing material, cans or other materials. Commercial balers and compactors are often used by large retailers such as big-box stores, grocery stores or other similar retailers that receive a large amount of packaged inventory for sale or otherwise create a relatively large volume of waste. The packaging, waste and other material created at such stores results in a large amount of waste or other material that must be removed from the store. The commercial balers and compactors are typically utilized by these stores to compact the waste, packaging and other materials into a relatively small, maneuverable volume for disposal and/or recycling.
These commercial balers and compactors are sophisticated and potentially dangerous industrial machines that are preferably only operated by authorized personnel. The commercial balers or compactors operate at high pressures and exert extreme forces to compact the materials into relatively small-sized bales. Certain government regulations prevent employees of a specific age from operating the commercial balers or compactors. In addition, the commercial balers and compactors operate as an exit point from a store where highly valued inventory is received, maintained and distributed and such an exit point is preferably strictly controlled.
Existing balers and compactors include a control panel that may limit operation to authorized users who have a key or an authorization code to enter into the controller to verify that they are authorized to use the machine. However, transferable keys and authorization codes do not consistently prevent unauthorized users from operating the baler, such as when a key is mistakenly or intentionally left in the controller or authorized users share authorization codes with unauthorized users or fellow employees. In addition, controllers for operating commercial balers or compactors often accept specialized codes from individual users to authorize use of the machine. If the controller is damaged, the codes can be lost and all authorized employees can be locked out of the system, thereby necessitating reconfiguration of the system and reauthorization of each user.
It would be desirable to design and develop a commercial baler or compactor wherein authorization to utilize the machine is uniquely personal to the authorized employee such that the machine does not operate unless an authorized user activates the baler or compactor. In addition, it would be desirable to design and construct a commercial baler or compactor wherein an authorized employee may be authorized for use of multiple machines in a single process and damage to a single controller does not result in loss of authorization information by the controller or a group of controllers.